Appendix:
Some Further Reflections on Hebrews 6

HEBREWS IVP New Testament Commentary Series

by Ray C. Stedman

Can spiritual life
be lost once it has been received? That is a question which has divided
Christians for centuries. An imposing list of scriptural references can be made
to support either a yes or a no. But both cannot be right---unless the problem
is our limited understanding of God's process of salvation! Perhaps our
situation is not unlike that of the five blind men in Aesop's fable who each took
hold of a different part of an elephant and insisted the whole must be similar
to only the part they could feel. Let us take another tack and see if it helps
to understand the issue.

Scripture frequently uses the analogy of physical birth and growth to
picture spiritual birth and growth. We have an example in Hebrews 5, where
immature Christians are likened to infants who need milk and not strong meat.
If the spiritual life follows the same pattern as physical life, is it not
possible that there is a spiritual gestation period between conception and
birth? Is there not a time when new Christians are more like embryos, growing
little by little in the womb, fed by the faith and vitality of others, just as
a fetus lives by its mother's blood and sustenance?

Certainly we have all observed people who seemingly started well in the
Christian life, blossomed and grew rapidly as new Christians, and yet, after a
while, lost their spiritual vigor and faded away, sometimes into outright
apostasy. This, of course, is just what the Lord predicted in the parable of
the sower. "Some seed," he says, "fell on rocky places where it
did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly . . . but when the sun came up,
the plants were scorched and withered because they had no root." But the
point is: they did spring up! There was
life, but it could not bear the hot sun. As Jesus interpreted the parable:
"The seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at
once receives it with joy, but since he has no root, he lasts only a short
time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls
away." Not having a root would correspond to the spiritual condition of
not having any personal faith of his own. He lived for a while only on the
faith (root) of others.

Again we must ask, What was the life that brought that initial experience of
joy? Was it Spirit-given, or was it only a psychological response, coming from
within the person alone? We probably cannot answer that question with any
certainty. A similar case exists with the seed that fell among thorns and
sprang up, only to be choked by the weeds which Jesus said were "the
worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth." These two examples
raise the possibility that there is Spirit-given life which is real and viable,
but depends on proper care to come to fruitbearing potential. It is only when
it bears fruit that it can be called genuine grain, and it may be lost before
it reaches that stage. Certainly Jesus said of the seed fallen in good soil that
"it produces a crop." Viewing the parable in this light would make it
almost a parallel to the situation in Hebrews 6.

But let us return to the metaphor of birth. Do we confuse conception with
birth? A fetus may grow in the womb, fed by its mother's strength, but is that
equivalent to birth? Of course not! Birth involves a break with the mother's
life and the beginning of an independent existence that is peculiarly the
infant's own. A newborn human may die after birth, even as everyone certainly
will die in the normal course of events. But here the parallel with the
spiritual must be altered, for many promises of Scripture powerfully assert
that once born into the Father's family there is no way to lose that life!
"I give unto them eternal life" says Jesus, "and they shall
never perish!"

There is at least a hint of a prebirth spiritual gestation period in the
promise of John 1:12 "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed
in his name, he gave the right to become children of God---children . . . born of God." Here a
"becoming" process is mentioned. This may be what Paul means when he
writes to the Galatians, "My dear children, for whom I am again in the
pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you" (Galatians 4:19). The
critical question then becomes, When does an individual's faith become truly
his own? Is he or she living off the faith of others, drawing true spiritual
grace and life from them? This often seems the case with children raised in a
Christian family. Their faith, which seems real enough as they are growing, is
not yet their own. Only when they leave the family circle and are faced with
the necessity of surviving in a hostile world do they either come to personal
faith themselves or, sadly, abandon all pretense of faith and lose themselves
in the world's unbelief.

The situation seems to be that borrowed faith, though real enough at the
time to produce many signs of spiritual vitality, can be lost. Others,
observing this, draw the conclusion that eternal life, once held, can be lost
again. Theologians call that Arminianism,
after a Dutch theologian named Arminius who held this view. Certain Scriptures
seem to support it. But once faith truly becomes personal, it can never be
lost, though it may waver and grow very weak at times. That is the conclusion
of Calvinists. But who can really tell the difference? Only the Lord can! We
must leave the matter then at that point, as Paul does in his letter to
Timothy: "God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this
inscription: 'The Lord knows those who are his,' and 'Everyone who confesses
the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness'" (2 Timothy 2:19).
God reads the hearts and knows whether the faith being exhibited is borrowed
faith or genuine; it is only when that inward faith affects the outward life
and the believer "turns away from wickedness" that we can tell it is
genuine faith.

From HEBREWS (IVP
New Testament Commentary Series) by Ray C. Stedman. (c) 1992 by Ray C. Stedman.
Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P. O. Box 1400, Downers Grove,
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